Katherine Matilda Swinton was born on 5 November 1960 inLondon, the daughter ofSir John Swinton (1925–2018) and Judith Balfour (née Killen; 1929–2012). She has three brothers.[5] Her father was a retiredmajor-general in theBritish Army, and wasLord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1989 to 2000. Her father was Scottish and her mother was Australian.[6][7][8] TheSwintons are an ancient Scots family whose members can trace their lineage to the 9th century.[9] Swinton considers herself "first and foremost" a Scot.[10]
Swinton attended threeindependent schools:Queen's Gate School in London, theWest Heath Girls' School, and alsoFettes College for a brief period.[11] West Heath was a boarding school, where she was a classmate and friend ofLady Diana Spencer, the futurePrincess of Wales.[7] As an adult, Swinton has spoken out against boarding schools, stating that West Heath was "a very lonely and isolating environment" and that she thinks boarding schools "are a very cruel setting in which to grow up and I don't feel children benefit from that type of education. Children need their parents and the love parents can provide."[12] Swinton spent two years as a volunteer in South Africa and Kenya before university.[13]
Swinton played the title role inOrlando (1992),Sally Potter's film version ofthe novel byVirginia Woolf. The part allowed Swinton to explore matters of gender presentation onscreen, which reflected her lifelong interest inandrogynous style. Swinton later reflected on the role in an interview accompanied by a striking photo shoot. "People talk about androgyny in all sorts of dull ways," said Swinton, noting that the recent rerelease ofOrlando had her thinking again about its pliancy. She referred to 1920s playful, androgynous French artistClaude Cahun: "Cahun looked at the limitlessness of an androgynous gesture, which I've always been interested in."[25]
In 1993, she was a member of the jury at the18th Moscow International Film Festival.[26] In 1995, with producerJoanna Scanlan, Swinton developed a performance/installation live art piece in theSerpentine Gallery, London, where she was on display to the public for a week, asleep or apparently so, in a glass case, as a piece ofperformance art. The piece is sometimes incorrectly credited toCornelia Parker, whom Swinton invited to collaborate for the installation in London.[27] The performance, titledThe Maybe, was repeated in 1996 at theMuseo Barracco in Rome and in 2013 at theMuseum of Modern Art in New York.[28] In 1996, she appeared in the music video forOrbital's "The Box".
Recent years have seen Swinton move toward mainstream projects, including the leading role in the American filmThe Deep End (2001), in which she played the mother of a gay son she suspects of killing his boyfriend. For this performance, she was nominated for aGolden Globe Award. She appeared as a supporting character in the filmsThe Beach (2000),[23] featuringLeonardo DiCaprio,Vanilla Sky (2001), and as the archangelGabriel inConstantine. Swinton appeared in the British filmsThe Statement (2003) andYoung Adam (2003). For her performance in the latter film, she received theBritish Academy Scotland Award for Best Actress.[29][30]
Swinton starred in the film adaptation of the novelWe Need to Talk About Kevin, released in October 2011. She portrayed the mother of the title character, a teenage boy who commits ahigh school massacre.[44] In 2012, she was cast inJim Jarmusch'sOnly Lovers Left Alive.[45] The film premiered at theCannes Film Festival on 23 May 2013, and was released in the U.S. in the first half of 2014. She played Mason in the 2014 sci-fi filmSnowpiercer.[46] Also in 2012, Swinton appeared inDoug Aitken'sSONG 1, an outdoor video installation created for theHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. In November of the same year, she and Sandro Kopp made cameo appearances in episode 6 of the BBC comedyGetting On.
She co-founded Drumduan Upper School inFindhorn, Scotland in 2013 with Ian Sutherland McCook. Swinton and McCook both had children who attended the MoraySteiner School, whose students graduate at age 14. They founded Drumduan partly to allow their children to continue their Steiner educations with neither grading nor tests.[47] Swinton resigned as a director of Drumduan in April 2019.[48]
Swinton is a signatory of theFilm Workers for Palestine boycott pledge that was published in September 2025.[65] In 2025, together with Olivier Saillard, she co-created a spectacleEmbodying Passolini, in which she used costumes fromPier Paolo Pasolini films.[66]
Although born in London and having attended various schools in England, Swinton describes her nationality as Scottish,[67] citing her childhood, growing up in Scotland and Scottish aristocratic family background.[68] In 1997, Swinton gave birth to twins,Honor and Xavier Swinton Byrne, withJohn Byrne, a Scottish artist and playwright.[69] She moved to Scotland in 1997,[70][71] and as of 2023 she lives inNairn,[72] overlooking theMoray Firth in theHighland region of Scotland, with her children and partnerSandro Kopp, a German painter, with whom she has been in a relationship since 2004.[73][74]
In a 2021 interview withVogue, Swinton mentioned that she identifies herself asqueer. She was quoted as saying, "I'm very clear that queer is actually, for me anyway, to do with sensibility. I always felt I was queer – I was just looking for my queercircus, and I found it. And having found it, it's my world." She said that her collaborations with several creative visionaries helped her to find a sense of familiar belonging.[75] In a 2022 profile byThe Guardian, she stated, "It just so happened I'd also been a queer kid – not in terms of my sexual life, just odd."[76]
In January 2022, Swinton said she was recovering fromlong COVID, with symptoms including having trouble getting out of bed, a bad cough,vertigo, and memory loss. She also stated that she was considering quitting acting to "retrain as apalliative carer", informed both by the trauma of living through theAIDS epidemic in the UK (feeling a similarity between her experiences and those of the characters inRussell T Davies's 2021 TV drama miniseriesIt's a Sin) and "witnessing the loving support her parents received from professional carers at the end of their lives, and the impact it had on her."[76]
Swinton signed a 2009 petition in support of directorRoman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival because ofsexual abuse charges filed against him in a 1977 incident. The petition argued that his detention undermined the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely" and that the arrest of filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects".[82][83]
The actress has been a staunch advocate for Palestinian rights throughout her career, starting as early as her role inFriendship's Death, a movie that is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. She has routinely expressed strong support for the Palestinian people, most recently by criticizing Israel's military actions in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire in October 2023, which she reiterated in February 2025 during a speech at theBerlin International Film Festival, where she condemned "state-perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder" and US President Donald Trump's plans for Gaza, signing a 2023 open letter organised by Artists for Palestine UK and was seen wearing a scarf with Palestinian colors in a Vogue photo-shoot.[1] She again signed an open letter in 2025 calling on the UK government to end its complicity in the violence, and has routinely joined A-list actors, filmmakers and industry figures pledging to boycott Israeli film institutes complicit in genocide.[84][85]
In June of 2025, in a response to the proscription ofPalestine Action as a 'terrorist organization', Swinton urged the government to repeal the ban.[86]
In 2006, Swinton was awarded an honorary degree by theEdinburgh Napier University for her services to performing arts.[90] In 2020, Swinton was awarded theBritish Film Institute Fellowship for her "daringly eclectic and striking talents as a performer and filmmaker and recognises her great contribution to film culture, independent film exhibition and philanthropy."[3] Also in 2020,The New York Times ranked her thirteenth on its list of "The Greatest Actors of the 21st Century".[1]
In November 2022, she was presented with the 2022FIAF Award "for her work on the preservation and promotion of archive film, film history and women's role in it".[91] She was also awarded theRichard Harris Award by the British Independent Film Awards in recognition of her contributions to the British film industry.
^Among these early performances was a participation of Swinton in one of the earliest sketches written by the yet-to-become famous comic duoStephen Fry andHugh Laurie, during theirFootlights collaboration years at Cambridge. As Stephen Fry recalled, during a public talk he gave regarding his autobiography about those early career days, that was a sketch about an American courtroom, which was to be played byEmma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie themselves, and needed someone to be the judge.[15]
^"An Evening with Stephen Fry Part 5". The American Book Center. 30 June 2011.Archived from the original on 22 February 2023. Retrieved22 February 2023....so we cast this girl who I – we all – thought was good actress and was a friend of ours, Tilda Swinton, so she played the judge.
^Cole, Ina, ed. (2021)."From the Sculptor's Studio", conversation with Cornelia Parker, held in 2008 and 2020. Laurence King Publishing Ltd. p. 174-187.ISBN9781913947590.OCLC1420954826.
^Thompson, Lorna (3 September 2019)."School saved from closure".Forres Gazette.Archived from the original on 16 September 2019. Retrieved13 January 2021.
^Cartner-Morley, Jess; Mirren, Helen; Huffington, Arianna; Amos, Valerie (28 March 2013)."The 50 best-dressed over 50s".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 23 June 2018. Retrieved13 December 2016.
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